Western Animation / Anchors UP

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Anchors UP, originally known as Elias og Storegaps Hemmelighet^note Elias And Storegap’s Secret is a 2017 Norwegian animated movie based on Elias: Rescue Team Adventures, with the English dub being released in 2018. It was produced as a collaboration between Animando and Qvisten Animation.

One stormy night, as Cozy Cove prepares for their aurora borealis festival, Elias receives an emergency call from Gustav, Big Harbor’s rescue boat- there’s been a distress call from the location of the Black Hole, a rock formation which is treacherous even in calm weather, and Gustav has engine trouble and can’t make the rescue himself.

Elias fearlessly plunges into the storm, and saves an odd, gruff ship named Vinnie from the pounding surf and jagged stones; by the next day, he’s famous for making his rescue, and the Queen of the Sea herself invites him to Big Harbor for a celebration in his honor- and then offers him a permanent position as Big Harbor’s new rescue boat.

Accepting the position, Elias soon finds that the city isn’t quite what he expected… and that Vinnie might not be all that he seems.

Tropes in Anchors UP include:

• 15 Minutes of Fame: This can be observed with Elias; at the beginning of the movie, he makes a heroic rescue, gets his name printed in newspapers across the world, and gets a celebration of his heroism set up by the Queen Of The Seas herself. By the next day, however, everyone’s moved on, and most of the inhabitants of Big Harbor are just disappointed that their new rescue boat is so small and young.
• Alliterative Name: Bobby the (Navigation) Buoy.
• Bird-Poop Gag: At one point, the seagulls poop on a talking navigation buoy.
• Boastful Rap: The “In The City” rap contains some of these lyrics.
  You barely float and I’m blazing
  You’re doing so-so, I’m amazing
• Capital Letters Are Magic: Official materials for the film insistently refer to Norwegium with capital letters.
• Captain Oblivious: The Queen of the Sea is completely ignorant of any signs that Vinnie and his crew are up to something, and, when Elias brings up his suspicions to her, is insulted by the very suggestion that she would do business with “goons”, and threatens to have him reduced to splinters if he repeats the accusations.
• Carpe Diem: Stella has this attitude, apparently due to the (alleged) dangers of Big Harbor.
  Stella: That’s why I want to live for today. I could be gone tomorrow.
• Catchphrase: The Queen of the Sea says “ship ahoy” wherever she departs.
• Chekhov M.I.A.: At one point in the movie, Stella tells Elias about two of her former friends, Little Jane and Billy Bob, who mysteriously disappeared one day. It turns out that they’re being forced to mine Norwegium inside the Black Hole by Vinnie and his crew.
• Chekhov's Boomerang: Helinor’s net is used twice- first she fills it with fish before dropping them on Vinnie, and then she throws it over Trigger and Grabber to stop them from trapping Elias and co. inside the Black Hole.
• Chekhov's Gun: Vinnie’s hatred of fish turns into this, as Helinor stops him from reaching the Black Hole by dropping a netload of fish onto him.
• Chekhov's Gunman: You know those two comic-relief seagulls? Well, after Helinor drops fish all over Vinnie to slow him down, they show up with a swarm of their fellows to dine on the sudden fish buffet, further delaying him from reaching the Black Hole.
• Cock-a-Doodle Dawn: A distant rooster can be heard on the morning Elias makes his decision to stay in Big Harbor.
• Creative Closing Credits: The ending credits are accompanied by a background consisting of the newly-restored Northern Lights.
• Creepy Cave: The Black Hole is a cave found in some ocean rocks which is dingy, filled with Sickly Green Glow-emitting ore, and only accessible at low tide- any boat stuck in there when the tide changes will be driven up by the rising water and end up impaled on stalactites.
• Crisis Makes Perfect: While fleeing from Trigger and Grabber, Elias attempts to do a trick involving hopping out of the water and sliding along a railing, only to fail and land upside-down in the water. In the climax of the film, a reformed Vinnie has bashed open the collapsed entrance to the Black Hole, but rocks are still blocking the water’s surface, necessitating that Elias do a similar trick, hopping out of the water and sliding along Vinnie’s hull. This time, he’s successful.
• Dance Party Ending: The ending has the boats of Cozy Cove dancing while “Dance, Pause” by Panetoz plays, although technically this isn’t quite the ending, as the actual final scene has Elias and Stella sailing away from the party to enjoy a romantic aurora-watching.
• Defeat Means Menial Labor: The film ends with Vinnie, Trigger, and Grabber being forced to renovate Cozy Cove; Vinnie willingly agreed to the job, but Trigger and Grabber are still wrapped in chains.
• Descriptiveville: The large city’s harbor is literally named “Big Harbor”.
• Ending Theme: The credits are accompanied by a reprise of “In The City”.
• Falling-in-Love Montage: Elias and Stella have one near the middle of the film, set to a song called, ironically enough, “I Don’t Want To Fall In Love”.
• Fantastic Fireworks: The celebration of Elias’s rescue of Vinnie comes with fireworks that spell “ELIAS” in the air.
• Fat and Skinny: A fat seagull and a thin one form the film’s comic relief duo.
• Fictional Holiday: Apparently, in Cozy Cove they celebrate an “aurora borealis festival” in the winter; we don’t actually get to see the festival, but apparently the preparations for it involve stringing up lots of holiday lights everywhere.
• Fictional Social Network: Apparently, the world of Elias includes such social media sites as “Boatbook” and “Instaship”.
• Firing Day: Elias gets fired from his job as Big Harbor’s rescue boat after missing the Queen of the Sea’s calls while having a Falling-in-Love Montage with Stella… and also can’t return to being Cozy Cove’s rescue boat, as Gerald has taken over that job.
• Foreshadowing:
  • When Elias rescues Vinnie in the storm, a green glow can be seen emanating from Vinnie’s cargo hold, and he comments that there’s too much electromagnetic interference around for Elias’s radio to work. The green glow and radio disruption are both caused by radiation emitted by Norwegium, which Vinnie had been illegally mining.
  • Later, Elias sees a similar green glow coming from a walled-off section of Big Harbor, and comments on how it almost looks like the aurora borealis. Again, the green glow is coming from Norwegium.
  • When Elias is flipped upside-down in the water, Vinnie demands that Grabber (who would otherwise be happy to sit back and watch him drown) right him immediately. The same moral code that caused Vinnie to do this ends up making him do a full-on Heel–Face Turn later in the movie.
• Gratuitous Spanish: A random talking crab says “Ay, dios mio” after being flipped onto his back.
• Headphones Equal Isolation: At one point, Elias pushes an oblivious headphone-wearing girl boat out of the way of a giant cargo ship.
• Heel–Face Turn: Vinnie ends up making one after hearing how Dippy is attempting to free Little Jane and Billy Bob using a method that will, unbeknownst to her, cause the Black Hole to collapse, as he decides that he doesn’t want their deaths on his conscience and sets off to the Black Hole to help them… even having to fight against his own cronies in the process.
• Heroic BSoD: After being fired from his job in Big Harbor, Elias tries to return to Cozy Cove only to find out that Gerald has taken over as rescue boat there… so he goes to an old island dock and spends the next few days or possibly weeks doing nothing but sitting there feeling sorry for himself.
• High-Class Glass: The messenger for the Queen Of The Sea wears a monocle.
• Hold Your Hippogriffs: As you might expect, boat-themed idioms abound.
  • When Elias is offered a job in Big Harbor:
  Cruiser: Wow, quite an offer. I’d grab that with both fenders, Elias.
  Trawler: Get it out, boy. Has a crab got your tongue?
  • This is actually Lampshaded at one point early in the movie, as one city boat tells Elias to remember to keep his “feet on the ground” now that he’s famous, and another thinks for a moment before correcting that to “bow in the water”.
• I Don't Like the Sound of That Place: A cave that sits at the ocean’s surface level and is known as the Black Hole? Yeah, sure, let’s stay away from that.
• Imagine Spot: After Elias brings up Brazil to him, Trawler has one of himself fishing in a sunny paradise surrounded by cheerful girl boats with samba headdresses.
• I Shall Taunt You: At one point, Stella goads a hose-sprayer into dousing Elias… which is a good thing, as it rids him of the fishy smell he picked up during a rescue at the fish warehouse.
• Jukebox Musical: Two-thirds of one; of the film’s three songs, two of them (“I Don’t Want To Fall In Love” by Marcus & Martinus and “Dance, Pause” by Panetoz) are preexisting songs; the other song, “In The City”, was written specifically for the movie, but was done so by Racer, a “real” rap artist.
• Karma Houdini: Despite threatening to have Elias “reduced to splinters”, the Queen of the Sea gets nothing in the way of karmic comeuppance besides having to make a formal apology to Elias before reinstating him as Cozy Cove’s rescue boat.
• Love at First Sight: This happens when Elias meets Stella.
• More Despicable Minion: While Vinnie essentially kidnapped Billy Bob and Little Jane and forced them to work in his illegal Norwegium-mining operation, he refuses to be responsible for the deaths of them and Elias, and makes a Heel–Face Turn because of this. His cronies Trigger and Grabber, on the other hand, were perfectly ready to sit back and watch Elias drown when he got flipped, and took glee at the thought of bashing him in with Trigger’s wrecking ball.
• My God, You Are Serious!: Bobby laughs upon hearing that Elias is going to be Big Harbor’s new rescue boat… until he realizes that he’s not joking.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!: Dippy’s attempt to drill through Billy Bob and Little Jane’s chains destabilizes the rock of the Black Hole, and nearly causes it to collapse while the boats are still in it.
• Non-Standard Character Design: The film’s normal character design involves “sculpting” the vehicle’s face out of the material naturally goes; the animators ran into trouble trying to apply this to some forklifts on Big Harbor’s dock, as the “standard” place for a cartoonist to put a face on a forklift is, depending on the model, either glass or empty air, so they just slapped some light gray material in its place, resulting in the forklifts looking like they belong in Thomas & Friends instead of this movie.
• Orphaned Etymology: A talking crab who’s been flipped onto his back asks for someone to give him a hand, despite the fact that no one in the movie actually has any hands; the closest thing are some of the boat and machine characters; mechanical claws. Later, the Queen of the Sea also tells Elias he’s “in good hands”, and Bobby at one point laments not having fingers.
• Photo Montage: One of these occurs when some girl boats insist on taking selfies with Elias.
• Pun: The construction/mining boats love making puns related to Trigger’s wrecking ball.
  Trigger (upon encountering Elias where he’s not supposed to be): Rescue boat, or “res-cue ball”, huh?
  • When a now-good Vinnie demands that Trigger and Grabber stop trying to collapse the mouth of the Black Hole:
  Trigger: We’re havin’ a ball here. You’re wreckin’ our fun. What’s your problem?
• Rhetorical Question Blunder: When trying to set up the aurora borealis festival:
  Trawler: Big Harbor? Ha! What do they have that we don’t have here?
  Crane: Well, a festive atmosphere…
• Ride of the Valkyries: This tune plays when Helinor flies in with a netful of fish to drop on Vinnie. It Makes Sense in Context.
• Shout-Out: During Elias and Stella’s Falling-in-Love Montage, the two seagulls reenact the famous “flying” pose from ''Titanic.
• Sickly Green Glow: Norwegium emits this kind of light.
• Talking Animal: Comic relief in the film is provided by a duo of talking seagulls with an insatiable appetite for fish; a random Spanish-accented crab also shows up at one point.
• Time-Passes Montage: When Elias goes into Heroic BSoD, we’re treated to the sped-up motions of the clouds through the sky, the Queen of the Sea and Trawler on their travels, and the shadows of the day and creeping past Elias, before Helinor interrupts this by picking Elias up and dropping him to check if he’s still alive.
• Toilet Humor: The movie contains a decent amount of fart jokes- the seagulls have a tendency to fart while sleeping, and when Elias hides from Grabber behind a sleeping older boat, the boat “farts” exhaust, convincing Grabber that that place isn’t worth checking and saving Elias’s hull.
• Totally Radical: Big Harbor is jam-packed with teen boats who seem compelled to talk in a horrible mix of slang from different areas, and love nothing more than taking selfies.
• Unobtanium: Norwegium, an impossibly strong metal which emits a Sickly Green Glow… as part of fairly inexplicable electromagnetic properties that make it so that mining it emits radiation that disrupts radio communication and somehow prevents the aurora borealis from occurring. Oh, and it can only be mined in an incredibly dangerous cave known as the Black Hole.
• Unwanted Rescue: Vinnie is weirdly resistant to the idea of Elias rescuing him near the beginning of the film, despite being trapped with a dead engine in a pounding storm near jagged rocks.
• Welcome to the Big City: After making a daring rescue at sea, Elias is offered a job as Big Harbor’s rescue boat, and jumps on it… despite not quite being prepared for the Totally Radical populace, and definitely not being prepared for Vinnie’s illegal underwater mining operation.
• What's Up, King Dude?: The Queen Of The Sea seems to be surprisingly lacking in the entourage department, as Elias is regularly able to just go up to her and tell her his suspicions about Vinnie and his crew (although he gets shot down each time).
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Vinnie, as revealed when a seagull drops a fish on him, hates fish. Helinor eventually exploits this, dropping a whole netfull of fish on top of him to keep him from reaching the Black Hole.
• Wimp Fight: While this might not be the intended impression, the two dock forklifts getting into a fight with their tines, certainly looks like an underpowered slap fight.